Songnotes

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A Companion to the Old Town School Songbook

Compiled and edited byMark Dvorak.

Get Along Little Dogies

One of the most enduring of all cowboy ballads, the rhythm of “Get Along Little Dogies” comes from the movement of a horse. The word “dogie” refers to a motherless calf who had to eat grass before being mature enough to digest it. This caused the calf to develop a big stomach which cowboys referred to as “dough guts,” later shortened to “dogies.”

Source: Folk Song USA, Alan Lomax, Editor, New American Library.
Recordings on File by: Woody Guthrie, Sons of the Pioneers, The Weavers.

Goin' Down to Cairo

There are only a handful of folk songs native to the state of Illinois, and “Goin’ Down to Cairo” (pronounced Kay-ro) is one of them. It's a song that is performed as a “singing game,” with accompanying steps similar to that of a square dance. Cairo, Illinois sits at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and the story behind “Goin’ Down to Cairo” goes back to the late summer 1858 when an early frost killed all the corn and tobacco in Southern Illinois.
     As the crops south of the Ohio River had not been damaged at all, planters from that region sent a portion of their harvest up river to be sold in Cairo, IL. Men journeyed to Cairo, many arriving several days before the boats came in with cargo.
     R.B. Shelton, a native to the area remembers: “It was pretty hard to find a good place to pass the time away so the men began going into saloons and various other places to be entertained. Wives noticed on return trips that their husbands had ‘blacked their boots’ and were dressed up a great deal more than usual and they had been making frequent trips to Cairo.
     “Many fabulous tales were told about the men having a ‘Liza Jane’ that they were interested in. As a result of this, wives began accompanying their husbands and the manner of entertainment in Cairo was somewhat changed.
     “Play parties and singing games were played which usually wound up as a square dance. ‘Goin’ Down to Cairo’ was first played as a joke, to poke a little fun at the errant husbands, but the song and the singing game that accompanied it were well-liked and people brought it back with them from Cairo, IL. I remember this was one of the favorite games when I was a boy.”

Source: Folk Songs and Singing Games of the Illinois Ozarks, by David McIntosh, edited by Dale R. Whiteside. Southern Illinois University Press.
Recordings on File by: Doug & Bonnie Miller, Eric Weisberg (Eight More Miles to Louisville).

Golden Slippers

James A. “Jimmy” Bland was a most prolific African American songwriter and performer. He was born a free American at Flushing, Long Island, NY in 1854, and it is reported that he composed over 700 songs in his lifetime. Songs like “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,” “In The Evening By The Moonlight” and “Golden Slippers” were popular numbers on the minstrel show circuit both in the United States and abroad.
Bland spent twenty years living in and touring Europe and was an extremely successful entertainer at the height of his career. But he lived high and dressed well, and that's probably why he and his money soon parted company. In 1901, he returned to the United States penniless.
Although the days of the minstrel song are long gone, songs like “Golden Slippers” live on in many traditions. You can hear it at old-timey picking sessions, bluegrass jams and the tune was even featured on a television commercial for a breakfast cereal.

Source: A Brief History of James A. Bland.
Recordings on File by: Brian Bowers, Jim Post, Carol Ann Wheeler.

Golden Vanity

Way back in 17th century England, a song such as “The Golden Vanity” was referred to as a “broadside.” A broadside is a topical song which usually levels criticism at someone or something, and broadside singers were the fore runners to the “protest singers” of the 1960’s.
One of the greatest broadsides is “The Golden Vanity.” It's an epic tale. Over the years, different versions of the heroic saga have evolved, and it's been sung to several different tunes.

Source: The Folk Songs of North America, by Alan Lomax, Doubleday.
Recordings on File by: Bok , Muir & Trickett, Cisco Houston & Woody Guthrie, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, Art Thieme.

Good News

Spirituals - great songs of faith born out of slavery - represent one of America’s important song treasures. The African American spiritual style often features a “call and response” format as well as a two line, interchangeable lyric. A spiritual also often involves an Old Testament or Judgment Day theme.
After the Civil War, African American colleges such as Fisk University, sent their choirs to tour the northern United States and Europe. Groups such as the Fisk Jubilee Singers helped to popularize many of the spirituals that are still widely known today.

Source: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie & Lead Belly, by Will Schmid, Music Educators Conference in Association with the Smithsonian Institution Office of Folklife Programs.
Recordings on File by: Bob Gibson, Kingston Trio.

Goodnight Irene

Along with Woody Guthrie, Huddie Ledbetter is regarded as one of the great American folk song composers and performers. Born near Shreveport, LA in the late 1800s, Huddie’s young life was filled with music, traveling, carousing and violence. He did three different stretches in prison in his lifetime, and at the age of 48 was discovered in Angola State Penitentiary by folk song collector John Lomax. Huddie was called “Lead Belly” and played a big twelve string guitar, which he tuned unusually low to imitate the sounds of a barrel-house piano.
     Lead Belly was a song collector and an animated entertainer. He was a story teller and a raconteur and a crack musician. He was an improviser who sang blues and work songs, spirituals and pop numbers. Lead Belly was also a skilled composer. Like Guthrie, he had the ability to take old and familiar songs and rework them into fresh material.
     Although Lead Belly never achieved great success as performer or recording artist in his lifetime, his songs and legend are inherently woven into the fabric of American folklore and folk music. His impact on American music is so widely acknowledged and strongly felt that Lead Belly was honored as the first inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.
     “Irene” is Lead Belly’s signature piece and he sang it his entire life. He composed it at age twenty-three when his heart was broken by a sophisticated young lady from Shreveport. In 1949 a record of “Irene” was released by a group of folk singers who called themselves The Weavers and the song went to number one. It sold a then unheard of two million copies but sadly, Huddie passed away only six months earlier and never saw the fame or fortune that the success of “Irene” would have brought him.

Source: The Folk Songs of North America, Alan Lomax, Doubleday.
Recordings on File by: J. D. Crowe & Friends, Emmy Lou Harris, Earl Scruggs & Tom T. Hall.

Grandfather's Clock

Before radio or sound recordings were invented, musical instruments - and the ability to play them - were at the zenith in home entertainment. Sentimental songs and novelty tunes were most popular and composed by the hundreds. Not only did they have to be catchy and fun to listen to, they also had to be easy to play and sing. Sheet music “copies” were sold and distributed in general stores, through mail order and even sold door to door.
Henry Clay Work was one of these first pop-songwriters in the days long before CD players or MTV. “Grandfather’s Clock” was one of his big hits, and to this day is still a favorite wherever folk or bluegrass musicians gather to “pick” a good tune.

Source: Burl Ives Songbook, Ballantine.
Recordings on File by: Ronnie Burroughs, David Grisman & Tony Rice, Shinobu Sato, Seldom Scene.

Greensleeves

Harvard University’s first professor of English was Francis James Child, a specialist in early English language and literature. He wrote and lectured on the works of great masters like Chaucer, Spenser and Shakespeare. He is best known though, for his five volume edition The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, published in the years 1882-89.
     Child plowed through a hundred years worth of published manuscripts and narrative collections and culled 305 titles which he considered to be original source material, a Herculean task to be sure. “The Child Ballads” collection stands as a most important historical document in the world of English language folk songs.
     “Greensleeves” is one of the most beautiful and cherished melodies in the Anglo song tradition. Francis Child notes that “It's earliest mention is in September 1580 when a Richard Jones had licensed to him ‘A New Northern Dittye’ of the Lady Green Sleeves.”
     It is widely acknowledged that Lady Green Sleeves was at the very least a promiscuous young woman and perhaps a prostitute. The reference to the color of her sleeves indicates the grass stains from a recent rendezvous with a suitor.

Sources:

Folk Ballads of the English Speaking World, edited by Albert B. Friedman. Viking.
Reprints from People’s Songs Bulletin, edited by Irwin Silber. Oak Publications.

Recordings on File by: Frank Hamilton, Pete Seeger.

Gypsy Davy

Many American folk songs and pop songs have their roots in the British Isles where a thriving ballad singing tradition exists to this day. Although the term “ballad” has come to refer to a slow-tempo number, singers and listeners who enjoy songs like “The Gypsy Davy” know that ballad singing is one of the primary disciplines in the traditional folk arts.
     A narrative ballad is a story song. It features clearly drawn characters and often a dialogue between them. And there's lots of action and drama and suspense in a well sung ballad. There's a victory to be won and a price to be paid and sometimes there's a moral to the story to boot.
     The ballad, “Black Jack Davy” goes way, way back and to Old England and has many versions. The story usually involves a young lady of good reputation or royalty who meets and falls in love with the roving Gypsy Davy. She agrees to run off with him and soon, the husband or sheriff is in close pursuit. When he finally catches up with the young couple, the woman scorns the husband and gladly leaves her wealth and comfortable lifestyle for a traveling life with the Gypsy Davy.
     Woody Guthrie “Americanized” the imagery and language of this wonderful and timeless story.

Recordings on File by: Woody Guthrie, Marianne Mohrhusen.

Gypsy Rover

“The Gypsy Rover” is a modern rewriting of an older ballad, “The Wraggle-Taggle Gypsies.” Both songs are variants of “Gypsy Davy,” but the newer, “Gypsy Rover,” has a surprise sort of an ending which probably made the song more acceptable in many social circles.

Recordings on File by: El McMeen, Kingston Trio.

A Final Note…